On to Uluru ... Monday 12/12/16

Today would be a long one, beginning with last night's reminder to have our luggage outside our room before we went to breakfast (to which we complied).  The second half of that message said that the bus would leave at 7am, be there or be left behind (kidding about the "left behind" part).

How many people know that Uluru (Ayers Rock) is roughly 275 miles (463km) from Alice Springs, via the Stuart and Lasseter Highways? That's approximately five hours driving time. When you're traveling with 17 other people, pit stops have to be provided, too, because somebody's always gotta go, so the five hours becomes six. Is this route scenic? Not really (look at the photo above), but the stops were, as you'll see. The coach we were in was smaller than what we've been used to (no comfy, plush seats), so the stops were most welcome. Roads that we call "paved," Aussie's call "sealed," and they weren't too bad.

Stuart's Well Camel Farm was our first break, around 8 in the morning.  For a price (I don't know how much), you can ride a camel, preferably a pretty one.  Only two in our crowd were interested, and the rest of us gathered to watch!  Guess it might have been too early for everyone else.

Ah, the pretty one is at left! 😉

Nice smile, too.

Sonya and Arvid, waving, and away they go!

With a sprint at the end of the track, wowzers!  The watching crowd applauded.  Sonya and Arvid were triumphant on the camel!  

Whoa, there!  Getting off the dang thing is another matter!

It was fun and a timely stop.

Above, moving right along → turning onto Lasseter Hwy ....

Mt Ebenezer Roadhouse came next.  Morning tea was provided, which was especially appreciated for anyone who'd visited one of the rooms below, and might again be thirsty.  These roadhouses are set in the middle of nowhere, and I'm guessing most travelers stop ... driver fatigue would be a real issue here.  We didn't see any animals on the road, but we weren't sitting up front, either.  That's the other hazard in the Outback, hitting a 'roo or a camel or even a stupid steer.

Uh, well, okay.  Christmas in the Outback does NOT resemble Christmas, say, in New England, or many another area in the states!  Local Aboriginal art was also available at Mt Ebenezer's, but Jimmy and I passed.  Besides, after a brief survey, I was outside, looking at the green trees and birds on their branches, and that absolutely deserted-looking road.

Well, now, think that might be Uluru? Nope, that's Mt Connor, a striking mesa, but a lot of people are fooled when it pops into view. Another name is Fool-uru 😄. Like Uluru, it's a sacred site to Aboriginal people, who call it Attila. This is the Mt Connor Lookout, a rest area with a pit toilet, and parking for those needing a rest. Our bus stopped here.

When the smell hits you before you see the danged thing, only desperation would make you step up and use it.  I wasn't desperate.  Peee-uu!

However, this flock of Zebra finches didn't seem to mind the stink, they found a (fresh?) water source below the toilet.  I hope the water source was sink water since these guys were all over that puddle. (I got close enough to take the pic before making a speedy getaway.)

We are in red sand country -- red-sand dunes!  Amazing to see trees and flowering shrubs growing in red sand.  Across the hwy from the rest area, I climbed to the top of a dune (to see what was on the other side) and, holy cow, I was astonished to see a lake!  Our guide called it Lake Martin, but I can't find any verification on that.  I'm guessing it's a salt pan "lake" 90% (or more) of the year, but as I mentioned earlier, rain fell in the area not long ago, and it appears a fair amount of rainwater collected here.  Hey, that's our road disappearing over the horizon.

A few miles down that road, I saw a forest of ... "what are those?" I asked.  Desert Oaks,(Allocasuarina decaisneana) they're called.  Quite a sight, I can tell you, when they hove into view, seemingly out of the blue.  Attractive, too.  A forest is not what you'd expect to see in the red desert. 

The road goes on forever ....

And, suddenly, there it is:  Uluru.  Ayers Rock.  Sacred site to native peoples and to many others who have seen it.  Still a long way for us, but we're close.  We are next.

A day in the Outback, Sunday, 12/11/16

Here's a doozy of a day for you, a fascinating day in and around Alice Springs, filled with new sights, delights, and enlightenment.  Just this morning our guide told us that no matter which way you go, north/south/east/west, the distance to any beach from Alice Springs is the same: 2,000 miles. "The Alice" is effectively the geographic center of Australia.  Yowza, long way to the beach!  Our RS group is staying at Chiefly Resort in Alice, with a lovely outdoor swimming pool, which I used this morning before breakfast.  So I don't need the beach!  The water was cooler than I expected, but I enjoyed my swim anyway.  (I asked later and was told the pool temp was down because of the clouds/rain a few days back.)

On to our day -- first up was a guided tour of the above park, which we enjoyed immensely, seeing the desert wildlife, birds and the nocturnal house with those hard-to-find critters, and lots of crawly guys.  Clear blue sky, warm, altogether a stellar morning!

Looks like our guide is showing some of the group spinifex grass, a spiky (sharp!) tussock grass that dominates much of the red sand desert and rocky ranges of Central Australia.  I think it likes lousy (or sandy) soil.  And Alice is in Central Australia.

This Rhea was outside its enclosure ... studying a rhea on the other side, both right up next to the fence.  While we stood looking, it suddenly erupted and "attacked" the other rhea, and they both jumped in the air about eight feet, with the fence between them.  I think I jumped about three feet myself!  We wondered, friends or foe?  You want in or out?  Happy or sad?  Both took off running along the fence, one in, one out, away from us. Who knows?

Jimmy and his friend, Bob.

Australian Bustard (bush turkey).  Big dude.

I know they're a "dirty" tree, inasmuch as they're always shedding bark or something, but I like the look of Eucalyptus trees, especially here in this desert habitat.  How about this -- 70% of the Australian mainland is classified as semi-arid, arid or desert; making it the driest inhabited continent on earth, but only 3% of the Australian population lives in the desert. 70% -- that's a lot of dry land, and only 3% populated, quite an equation.

Perentie (behind log):  largest monitor lizard or goanna native to Australia.

Strange creature, and large.

I hope you can read the poem.

If you enlarge the pic, hit your computer's back arrow to get back where you were!

Numbat:  aka banded anteater, marsupial anteater, or walpurti, a marsupial found in Western Australia, about the size of a raccoon.  Its diet consists almost exclusively of termites (yay).  Gotta love its name!  All these guys, above and below, were cool to see.

Top left:  Earless Dragon; right: Thorny Dragon

Bottom:  Mulga Snake (one of the longest venomous snakes in the world)

Aw, I loved these two (nocturnal) Tawny Frogmouths, sitting in a darkened enclosure.

I have lots more pictures, of course, birds and flowers and such, but it was time to move on.  Let me know if you want to see more! 😄

* * * * * * * * * *

After morning tea and lunch at Desert Park, our group hopped back on our coach, heading north about ten miles into the Western MacDonnell Range, passing by Rev John Flynn's grave.  I didn't know a thing about it, either, but later today I would.  Meanwhile, we'd spend about an hour at scenic Simpsons Gap in West MacDonnell Range National Park, which runs east/west of Alice.  We all were happily surprised at the prospect.

OK, no water, no problem.  Very pretty, tho.

Oh.  My bad.  There is water.  Yucky, but still, it's water.

Wow, a permanent waterhole, and a simply stunning gorge carved out by Roe Creek, where water flows out through a small gap in the range.  This is also a sacred site to the Aboriginal people; it was the mythological home of a group of giant goanna ancestors. Several dreaming trails and stories cross at this important spiritual site.

We were here.

Never mind the color of the H₂0, check out the gorgeous red cliffs. We poked into and examined everything, but Jimmy and I wished we'd had time for a hike around one of several trails, like for an entire day.  Next time.  A sign said that a colony of Black-footed rock-wallabies lives in the rocks with a good likelihood of being seen.  I looked thru my binocs and, by gum, found one up on the rocks.  I turned around to alert the guys behind me and when I turned back, all those rocks looked alike!  Never did find it again.  Oh well.

Long-nosed Water Dragon -- agile tree-climbing dragon with extremely long tail.

Maybe it should be called long-tailed water dragon?

Such a beautiful tree.

* * * * * * * * * *

Back to Rev Flynn -- he was responsible for designing Australia's Royal Flying Doctor Service, and this afternoon we visited the RFDS museum in Alice Springs.  RFDS is a nonprofit organization, dedicated to serving the Outback's medical needs.  We watched a movie about how the service manages to this provide health care, and we visited the interpretative center, and the gift shop, (naturally).  The nice thing about this gift shop is 100% of profits go straight into replenishment of aircraft and medical equipment.

This is your Captain speaking!

I don't believe I've seen the movie, and I can't remember if I read the book long ago, tho I've read most everything Nevil Shute wrote.

* * * * * * * * * *

After returning to our hotel, we milled around, and sat around and chatted with our friends, till it was time for dinner.  Tonight our RS group was in for another special treat at Kungkas Cafe (Aboriginal Owned, Quality Bush Food).  Our hostess, who is part Aboriginal herself, taught us a little about using traditional bush foods in modern cuisine.  We sampled things (no grasshoppers or anything like that) such as Warrigal Spinach, Old Mans Saltbush, and various seeds and bush spices.  Everything tasted delicious, and the evening was a hit.

One of the tables set up for sampling.  Notice the dot painting tablecloth.

Australian Magpie-larks are so bold.  This one insisted on flying into the dining room!

And on that note, I'll bid you goodnight!

This is Alice Springs? Sat, 12/10/16

Boy, howdy, what a nice send off from the City of Melbourne -- a squadron of hot air balloons ascending in the early morning overcast.  At 7:30am, our Road Scholar group left for the airport, and a 3-hour Qantas flight to Alice Springs.

Once in the air, the landscape below evolved from multi-colored quilt blocks near coastal Melbourne to an almost-nothing expanse of brownish, irregular-shaped plots as we flew inland.  Long, squiggly or zig-zag lines, like we've seen on Aboriginal shield designs appeared, which is fitting in the Outback ... ancient peoples would know about these things.  Occasionally a straight dirt track arose and retreated into the distance. Strings of smooth, darker-colored hills stood out at intervals against the drab brown.  Further inland, I saw no roads, nor anything like a building's shiny roof, no sign of human habitation -- just an overall sepia emptiness. It's a vast desert we were flying over, with no visible mountain ranges, although from 30,000' up, it was plain the land below twern't pancake flat. 

The sky was hazy.  Time passed.  With my face pressed to the window, I began to see sandy stretches a-swirl with shades of gray, white, tan, and dusky brown, which reminded me of a mocha latte ... perhaps dry lakebeds?  More minutes passed and then I spied large, white salt beds (?) splotched with black ... made me think of inkblots or a Rorschach test -- weird! An hour or so out of Alice Springs, I noticed the ground had become myriad shades of red. As we approached Alice, dark wavy crevices or ditches, with curlicues, snaked away toward the horizon, like our arteries branching out from our heart.  

Earth pigments -- burnt umber, raw sienna, tan, maroon -- make up this desert.  Holy moly, it's the direct opposite of Milford Sound!  Suddenly, a cluster of those shiny roofs I'd been looking for appeared below, with a long straight track, going somewhere.  As the plane began its descent, I thought I saw a river. Is that possible?

Knowing we were seeing only a small portion [from the air, no less] of such an immense desert, I wondered to myself, "Is this what I thought the Outback would look like?" I had no preconception.   I just knew it'd be hot. 

Yup,  this is Alice Springs. But, wait, it's green!  Aha, the same weather system that brought wet, windy, and cooler-than-normal temps in Melbourne, dropped two inches of rain on Alice, lowering humidity and ushering in slightly lower temps while we'd be here.  Lucky us!

Look at the blue eyes on this dude!
An Australian Raven, squawking up a storm at our hotel.

Today, we transferred to our hotel before going on to other venues!  After checking in, Jimmy and I went for a walk about the grounds; that raven was the first of many novel birds I heard and saw in the Outback.  Yep, we put away our jackets and broke out the shorts and T-shirts, but I don't think the temp reached 90℉.

After orientation and lunch, we hit the streets (by coach) for Alice Springs School of the Air. Alice has an abundance of cool, decorative murals.

 

Learning how the School of the Air works:  It's main focus is educating those children (primary and early secondary) in remote and outback Australia.  Often computers, printers, etc., are supplied, and the Internet has become a big tool for these kids.

I love this example of Australian Aboriginal Art -- works that show dots, cross hatching, maps of circles, spirals, lines and dashes -- the long-established pictorial language of Western Desert Aboriginal People.  Not only is this simple dot style beautiful, it has a more hidden meaning and deeper purpose -- to disguise the sacred stories told in the paintings. We understood the story told above.  Heck, we almost bought a piece like this, but our walls need less, not more!  If you Google "Aboriginal Art," you'll see some fantastic art works.  After "attending" Air School, our group returned to the hotel.

Linda trying on her sand fly face/neck net.

She may need it tomorrow!

Lots of Galah Cockatoos Out and About in Alice Springs!

From our hotel, Jimmy and I walked "to town," crossing a bridge over the bone-dry Todd River to see what we could see, so to speak.  Answer is, not much.  Alice reminded us of towns on Rte 66, parched and forgotten.  Nothing was open on a Saturday afternoon; we saw a lot of "For Lease, For Sale, Available" signs in front of empty stores.  A few hollow-eyed Aborigines sat on a corner, with their dot paintings for sale, repeating "no pictures" as we passed by.  We spotted them later as they ambled back to their encampment beneath the bridge.  Depressing.  (Aborigines don't want their images captured.)

One section of a long mural at the back of Alice Springs' grocery store.  I guess most people know that camels were brought into the Outback years ago for transport and heavy work, and when they were no longer needed, they were turned loose to fend for themselves. Nowadays about 75,000 wild camels roam the wilderness.

Tufted pigeon, looks like it could put your eye out.
We saw a bunch of these guys.

Our first evening in Alice was excellent!  Dinner from the grill at Olive Pink Cafe, with Aussie folk singer and songwriter, Barry Skipsey to entertain.  So much fun!  Barry was the perfect entertainer ... not only did he have us singing and clapping, he had wallabies listening and birds singing!

A small flock of wild Australian Ringneck Parrots joined in.

Hah -- he enlisted Brian and Alla to help out on this song skit, and they were such great sports.  When we'd finished dinner and the entertainment was over, an astronomy talk was presented away from the lights, but the moon itself was very bright.  Parked in chairs to look up at the Southern Hemisphere night sky, spotting a brilliant Venus was easy, as were other constellations, tho we soon learned it was the wrong time of year to see the Southern Cross.  Oh well, if that's our biggest disappointment on this trip, no worries, we'll heal just fine!